Seven
by Bad Mum
Summary: Seven characters and seven prompts. Percy Weasley, Blaise Zabini, Astoria Greengrass, Oliver Wood, Susan Bones, Padma Patil and Marcus Flint.  For the "One Week" challenge at the HP Fanfiction Challenges Forum.
1. Percy Weasley

**Seven**

_**One - Percy Weasley - failed**_

Percy Weasley looked at the accumulated pile of paperwork on his desk and scowled. He was doing his best, but it seemed that his best was never quite enough. Twice already this week, he'd been hauled into Madam Umbridge's office to be told he wasn't pulling his weight. It stung. Especially when he was working his socks off for the bloody Ministry, and had given up so much for them. But it seemed that if your name was Weasley, even that wasn't quite enough. Nothing he did would ever be quite enough.

Percy had always been a hard worker. Right the way through school, he was the one who always gave his homework in on time, the one who wrote more than was asked or expected, the one who was never satisfied with As, and aimed for Es all the time. To be honest, he was the one who was always a bit disappointed with an E; hoping for an O every time. He had always been ambitious and had always known that it was in the Ministry that he wanted to make his mark.

He had striven and worked and fought to get here. He had burnt the candle at both ends. He had worked late and come in early. He had given up weekends and evenings and time with friends and family. And when it came to making a choice, he had put career and ambition and loyalty to the Ministry above loyalty to his family.

(He believed - no, he knew - that they were wrong. But still, they _were_ his family.)

And now it seemed that his best was not good enough for the Ministry.

Failure. An ugly word.

He had failed.

* * *

><p>Percy Weasley sat in the corner in the familiar living room at The Burrow. He did not look up, because if he did he would see his family, his broken family.<p>

He had failed them far more than he had failed the Ministry. He had sacrificed their love and support for his own selfish ambition. He had blinded himself to what was right so that he could gain power and influence with the people he thought were important.

And they were not the important ones at all.

He had failed, and this was the failure that really mattered.

"Perce!" He looked up and saw Ron holding out a steaming mug to him, something approaching a smile on his face, despite his red eyes.

"Tea," Ron said, as one explaining something to an idiot or to someone who has been very ill. "It won't cure anything, but..." He shrugged. "It might help a bit."

Percy managed a faint smile of his own as he took the tea. He did not understand it, but his family still wanted him, had even welcomed him back.

Perhaps this was one failure he could redeem.


	2. Blaise Zabini

_**Two - Blaise Zabini - pale**_

Blaise is four years old the first time he sees the pile of pale ivory fabric heaped on his mother's bed. He stretches out to touch, to feel if it really is as silky soft as it looks, but his hand is slapped away forcefully.

"Don't touch!" snaps Nancy, the latest in a long line of young witches hired by Madam Zabini to care for her young son. "That is your mama's. You have sticky hands. Don't touch!"

The next day, Blaise is dressed in his best and led firmly by Nancy to a big room in a building he does not remember seeing before. Mama is there, dressed in the pale ivory silk, next to a tall man whom Blaise vaguely remembers meeting once. "The man called him "sonny" and gave him a chocolate frog, but Blaise did not like him much. But Mama looks beautiful in the pretty dress, and Blaise enjoys the cake and the ice cream at the meal later in the day.

The tall man is not around for long, and is succeeded by an Italian, then a Greek, and then a dark man with a stutter who might be an American. Blaise does not have much to do with any of them. He is kept in the nursery by a succession of Nancys, Annas and Giovannas. He sees Mama in the evenings sometimes, and for birthdays and other special occasions. He does not mind much. He is used to it.

The stuttering American is gone by the summer before Blaise starts at Hogwarts. Four weeks before term starts, Blaise enters his mother's chamber (by invitation - he would not dare go in there unasked), and sees a familiar pale coloured mound of fabric on the bed. He knows what is coming, and wonders how long this man will last. He hopes it will not be too long. Now that he is older, Mama sometimes permits him to eat with her - and her guests - for luncheon and even for some dinner parties. He has met Mama's latest amour, a stout man from the North with an affected laugh, and he does not like him at all. Still, he will not see much of him once he is off at school.

Mama emerges from her dressing room, all red silk and black feathers, smelling of roses and cigarette smoke, and smiling at him slightly vaguely.

"Ah, Blaise darling," she says, in the gushing voice that she always uses when she is trying to talk someone round to something. "You have seen my gown." She indicates the pile of silk with a wave of her hand. "So you can guess what is happening tomorrow. Philip has asked me to marry him. Such a surprise!" She clutches at her chest with an affected little laugh. Blaise does not know why she bothers. He knows it is all an act just as well as she does herself. But he goes along with it out of long habit and because it is so much easier than arguing.

"Congratulations, Mama!" he says easily enough, reaching over to kiss her cheek. He is as tall as she is already. (He remembers vaguely a nursemaid - not Nancy, the one who came before Nancy, whose name he does not remember - telling him when he was quite a little boy that he would be tall like his real Papa.) Mama smiles and calls him a "dear boy" and holds the pale ivory dress up against herself for his admiration. He smiles and admires it as he is required to do, and shakes hands politely with Philip when he comes in and sweeps Mama into his arms with a kiss and a proprietorial look.

On the morrow, Blaise dons his dress robes happily enough, and smiles and shakes hands and poses for photographs as he has done so often before. He supposes that he loves his mother, and this is what she expects of him.

He tries to be a good and dutiful son.


	3. Astoria Greengrass

_**Three – Astoria Greengrass – scream**_

Astoria looked over the bannister at the lively crowd below. She could have screamed in sheer frustration. What difference did two years and a bit make? She was prettier than Daphne, taller, slimmer. But because she was only fourteen, still a child, she was left out of the fun.

She had tried of course, tried to persuade her mother that fourteen was quite old enough to make her appearance at the New Year party. She could pass for sixteen easily, maybe even seventeen. Who would know she was not of age? If anyone questioned, they were more likely to question Daphne, shy and awkward as she was. Besides, the party was in her own house. Surely the social rules that such affairs were for adults only need not apply to her here?

But apparently they did. Mother was sympathetic but unbending. This was a special party, a special New Year for people like them. Finally their sort of people were in the ascendant, their views and way of looking at the world mattered . Many people would be here tonight who were influential in the new regime. The family needed to be seen to do things properly, as was expected of Purebloods who might have a part to play in the new world that was being built. And Astoria was too young for the party. She was still a child.

Astoria considered for a moment throwing a tantrum, screaming and sulking in a way that she knew from experience would make the whole household's existence a misery until she got her own way. But such a course of action would not be dignified, would not be becoming in a girl who was trying to show how very grown up she was despite her years. She retreated to her own bedroom in high dudgeon and stifled her single scream of frustration in her pillow.

Now, watching the crowds below, the fuss and confusion of many arrivals, she wondered why she had cared so much. The guests were mostly her parents' contemporaries, or even older. People her ambitious parents wanted to impress. Not her type at all. She would probably have more fun upstairs on her own, with her pilfered bottle of wine and the large box of chocolates she had extracted from the back of Daphne's wardrobe. (Daphne needed to lose weight. She was doing her a favour by eating them.) In the morning, Daphne would moan and complain about her boring evening, and she could smile complacently, knowing she had not missed anything at all.

But then, looking down over the carved balustrade, she saw him. A pace or two behind his tall parents, as a respectful son should be, taller than his mother and nearly as tall as his father. Blond, smiling quietly, carrying himself with assured ease, so good looking. She felt the bile of sheer jealousy rise in her throat as Daphne, awkward, plump Daphne, surged forward in her mother's wake to greet him. "It should have been me," she muttered. "It should have been me."


	4. Oliver Wood

_**Four - Oliver Wood - frozen**_

There is a picture on the mantel piece, not quite in pride of place, but prominent enough. Seven young people, four boys and three girls, dressed in scarlet and gold, holding aloft a golden cup. Oliver regards it with fondness; himself and his friends frozen in time at what was - then - the high point of his life. He remembers even now the sheer elation of winning, the double thump as the twins flew into him and Harry in mid-air after Harry caught the Snitch, the girls' voices chanting, "We won the Cup! We won the Cup!" That moment, frozen in time in a photograph, will be caught in his mind forever.

There is another photograph on the mantel shelf. Six of the young people, older than in the first photograph in more than years. One missing, and even on such a happy day that absence is felt. Maybe if it would not be so obvious if his twin were not there, smiling at the end of the photograph, his arm around the waist of the tall dark bridesmaid to Oliver's left. Despite the smile, he looks somehow diminished from the grinning boy in the first photograph with his arm around the shoulders of an identical boy with an identical grin.

Oliver smiles slightly sadly and replaces the picture on the mantelpiece, shaking himself to be rid of the memories and return to reality, to his life here and now. He turns as the door opens and his wife comes in carrying their son. Their son – still Oliver is slightly amazed that he should be old and responsible enough to be a father. His wife smiles up at him and hands the boy over with a groan of relief.

He's heavy," she complains, rubbing her back. "And baby sister is making her presence felt today. She'll have to be a Beater."

Oliver smiles and pulls her close. He gestures at the first photograph on the mantelpiece, and his wife's eyes soften too as she sees them again as they were, all of them.

"Shall we call her Frederica?" Oliver asks with a grin, and she laughs and touches the face of the remaining twin in their wedding photograph slightly sadly.

"I like Georgia better, I think," she says softly. The boy in Oliver's arms wriggles to be put down; it is his tea time and he is hungry.

Oliver sets him down and laughs. "Okay, okay. I can take a hint," he says. "You're a growing lad and it's time to eat." He takes the child's hand, and the three of them leave the room together for the cosy kitchen where the meal is awaiting them.

Behind them in the picture on the mantelpiece, the young Quidditch team, frozen in time and in victory, continue to celebrate.


	5. Susan Bones

_**Five – Susan Bones – green**_

Susan wears her new green dress when Aunt Amelia takes her out for the day. Green is her auntie's favourite colour. Susan is only eight, but she knows already that people do not understand about Aunt Amelia. They see "Madam Bones" with her faintly forbidding air and her important job at the Ministry. Susan sees an auntie who is fun to be with, who dotes on her only niece, who spoils her and laughs with her and understands what it is like to be young and to wish that a good day will never end.

They go to the Muggle playground, and Aunt Amelia pushes Susan on the swings so, _so_ high, and on the roundabout until she is dizzy and cannot walk straight. Then they buy huge ice creams from the van near the park entrance and walk down the street avoiding the cracks and lines in the pavement, just because they want to. In Diagon Alley, Aunt Amelia buys Susan a new cloak of deep green that looks beautiful with her dress, and they choose a cake to take home for tea with Mama and Papa. They go for lunch in a proper restaurant, and Aunt Amelia lets Susan choose from the menu herself rather than choosing for her. "Just as if I was a grown-up too," Susan thinks to herself.

They go to Gringotts in the afternoon, as Aunt Amelia has business there, but Susan does not mind. The goblins fascinate her, although they scare her too, and she keeps a fast hold of her auntie's hand. Afterwards, they go to Fortescue's for _another_ ice cream, and then Aunt Amelia takes her to Flourish and Blott's and helps her to choose a book for Mama's birthday.

Then it is time to go home, but the day is not over yet. Family teas are such fun with Aunt Amelia there, teasing Papa, whom she still sees as her baby brother, and telling funny stories about the goings on at the Ministry. The cake is lovely too. And even bedtime is fun because Susan's auntie tells the _best _bedtime stories.

Susan is sixteen when Voldemort kills her auntie. She does not cry for her, because that is not what Aunt Amelia would want. But as she stands beside her parents at the graveside, wearing a new green dress, Susan vows to fight against the Dark with all that is in her.

She keeps her vow proudly in the hard times that follow, and is wearing a green ribbon for Aunt Amelia when she dies in the Battle of Hogwarts nearly two years later.


	6. Padma Patil

_**Six - Padma Patil - trying**_

Sometimes Padma would look over at the Gryffindor table and wish that things were different. She would see Parvati, usually deep in conversation with Lavender Brown, and miss the kind of intimacy she used to share with her sister before they came to Hogwarts. Then she would look further down the table and see Fred and George Weasley, always next to each other or opposite each other, totally in accord with one another, even finishing each other's sentences. Perhaps if she and Parvati had gone to Sangam as Mother and Grandmother had wished, they would be more like that. There were no Houses at Sangam; they would have been together in dormitories and in class and in meals, just like it had been when they had been at home - together all the time.

But Father had won out - as he usually did on matters academic at least - and insisted that now they were living in Britain, that his girls should have a proper British magical education. So they had come to Hogwarts, and had been split up - to Parvati's surprise, but not to Padma's.

If she was honest with herself, she would admit that even at Sangam they would have grown apart. They did not have - had never had - that perfect understanding of each other that the Weasley twins had and seemed to take for granted. When they were very little girls, Padma would be the one sitting in the corner with her head buried in a book whilst her twin was outside playing in the stream or climbing a tree. When they had company, and Father and Mother expected their girls to be on show, reciting or singing or simply handing round snacks and drinks, Parvati revelled in it and Padma hated it, wanting nothing more than to be allowed to sit quietly on her own and say as little as possible to anyone.

So, it was inevitable that the House system at Hogwarts would separate Padma from her twin officially. She had tried, when the Sorting Hat was set on her head, thought the bravest thoughts she could, tried to hide the awareness that in book learning and essay writing and in all the things that Father thought important, she could beat her twin hands down. But the Hat was not to be deceived.

"Oh no, my girl. You can try, but you can't fool me. You're a scholar through and through. You'd never be happy anywhere other than RAVENCLAW!"

And perhaps it was for the best. Even if she had managed to trick the Sorting Hat and gone to Gryffindor with Parvati, they would probably still have grown apart. Parvati would have found her own friends, proper Gryffindors, and left Padma behind. At least in Ravenclaw Padma had friends; people like her, people who understood the joy she found in solving a knotty Arithmancy problem or in modifying a Charm just so in order to make it that little bit better. Gryffindors did not care for such things. Their recklessness and gallantry and bravery looked beyond the details to wider horizons.

At least Father valued Padma's cleverness. Of course he did, for he had been top of his year at Sangam, whilst Mother languished somewhere in the middle of the lists in the year below. Father thought exam results mattered. But Padma knew better. It was Mother who made the family's limited budget stretch for the comfortable lifestyle Father expected; it was Mother who was the best playmate when the twins were little; it was Mother who understood when they were upset and knew how to make things better again; it was Mother that friends and family looked to when they were in trouble. Parvati was like Mother.

Padma wished she was too. And she couldn't help trying, even though she knew in her heart that she could never make herself into someone she was not.

Perhaps one day, if she kept trying, she would find her own kind of courage.


	7. Marcus Flint

_**Seven - Marcus Flint - curls**_

Marcus knew all about family. Family meant loyalty and doing what was expected of you. Family meant living up to expectations. Family meant not letting people down.

And Marcus did what his family expected. He was Sorted as a matter of course into Slytherin House like his parents and elder brother before him. He was a good student, scorings Es and the occasional O. He played Quidditch, and attained the post of Slytherin captain. (Though he kept things in proportion. Quidditch was a game - academic work was more important.) He became a Prefect.

And, of course, and perhaps most importantly, he had the right friends. People from families like his own, Purebloods, those who knew that the natural order of things was for their kind to be the ruling class.

He went from school straight into the Ministry, and was a rising star under the new regime.

Marcus' family were proud of him.

Of course, things changed when Harry Potter and his allies defeated the Dark Lord and overturned the new regime. Marcus and his family were not in the ascendant now. But he was wise, kept his opinions to himself, did his work well, and outside work continued to associate with like-minded people.

Marcus did not let let his family down.

Until he was twenty-four, when all he knew - or thought that he knew - about family came crashing down around him. He met Susannah Curtis in a second hand bookshop in Diagon Alley, and they hit it off at once, sharing a love of old engravings and maps. They went from the bookshop to a tearoom, and were halfway through tea and scones - although Marcus was far more interested in the pretty face opposite him than in the food - when Marcus found out, to his utter horror that Susannah was Muggle Born. She was so pretty, so clever, so much fun to be with, such an interesting person. How could it be that she was not one of the right people?

Marcus hid his horror, and even made arrangements to see her again, but he left the teashop in utter confusion. What would his parents say if they knew that their upright and responsible son had not only had an assignation with a Mudblood, but had made arrangements to see her again? Marcus was more than half horrified at himself; he could not expect them to understand.

Still, he met Susannah again, as arranged, and found her just as fascinating, just as interesting a companion, just as beautiful as before. By the end of the evening, he was a fair way to being in love. He arranged to see her again.

Now, Marcus knows all about family. Family is him and Susannah, and little Beth and the baby boy due soon. Family is laughing and loving and not caring too much about expectations. Family is holding his Muggle Born wife close and wondering how a man like him managed to get so lucky. Family is tying up his little daughter's brown curls up with a pink bow and lifting her high and swinging her round and round and round.

It took him a long time to learn, but now Marcus knows all about family.


End file.
